MEXICAN05-C-01SEP00-DD-HO--A model of the Mexican Museum by Ricardo Legorreta.
HANDOUT ALSO Ran on: 12-12-2004
Thompson-Dorfman development group of Sausalito is building 44 units of rental housing, seen in this rendering, for faculty of the College of San Mateo near the campus. Ran on: 12-12-2004
Thompson-Dorfman development group of Sausalito is building 44 units of rental housing, seen in this rendering, for faculty of the College of San Mateo near the campus. CAT

Photo: HANDOUT

MEXICAN05-C-01SEP00-DD-HO--A model of the Mexican Museum by Ricardo...

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Construction equipment is stored on Jessie Square across from Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, Calif. on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008. The Mexican Museum had long been planned for the site, located next to the nearly-completed Contemporary Jewish Museum, but after years of delays, it appears it will not be built there. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOGRAPHER AND S.F. CHRONICLE/NO SALES - MAGS OUT

Photo: PAUL CHINN

Construction equipment is stored on Jessie Square across from Yerba...

Thirteen years ago, San Francisco's Mexican Museum unveiled the model for the handsome new home it planned to build on Jessie Square across from Yerba Buena Gardens: a terraced six-story structure clad in rough red stone, designed by Mexico's foremost architect, Ricardo Legorreta.

That signature building promised to raise the profile of the grassroots museum whose splendid collection of Mexican and Chicano art - about 14,000 objects encompassing pre-Columbian, Mexican folk art, modern and contemporary works - could not be displayed adequately in its cramped quarters at Fort Mason.

But after years of delays and stalled fundraising efforts, the Legorreta building has yet to rise, and probably never will.

"It's likely that it won't be built," said Tom Peterson, a longtime trustee of the Mexican Museum, which was founded in a Mission District storefront by artist Peter Rodriguez in 1975.

Instead, the museum, whose Fort Mason galleries have been closed for two years, could be integrated into a tower that Millennium Partners and JMA Ventures want to build at Third and Mission streets, overlooking Jessie Square. The developers have been talking to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, which owns the land and had committed $20 million to build the shell of the Legorreta building, about making space for the Mexican Museum in the planned mixed-use tower.

That structure, which hasn't been officially presented, would presumably rise from the site originally envisioned for the Mexican Museum and merge with the landmark ochre-brick Mercantile Building to the east. A spokesman for Millennium - which built Metreon, the Contemporary Jewish Museum on Jessie Square that's set to open in June and the Four Seasons hotel that towers behind it - confirmed that the company is "having conversations about developing a project with the Redevelopment Agency and the Mexican Museum," and that another prominent Mexican architect, Enrique Norton, has been hired to create designs for the "potential" project.

"We continue to feel that the Mexican Museum is a critical cultural institution in the city," said Redevelopment Agency Director Fred Blackwell, who declined to discuss the specifics of the plans under discussion. "Everything is speculative at this point. If we are able to get something going there, it would be similar to MOAD," Blackwell added, referring to the new Museum of the African Diaspora, another Redevelopment Agency project, which was built into the St. Regis condominium tower across from Yerba Buena.

Legorreta didn't know that his design for the Mexican Museum probably wouldn't be built. He was "a little disappointed" to hear the news, said his assistant, on the phone from Mexico City.

The trustees of the Mexican Museum, which no longer has a staff and has sought advice and assistance from the city-owned Fine Arts Museums, couldn't raise the $8 million it needed to finish the interior of the planned $30 million Legorreta building.

Like other nonprofits around the Bay Area - including the Contemporary Jewish Museum, which had to regroup and scale back its plans - the Mexican Museum's capital campaign was grounded by the dot-com bust and the ensuing recession. The city's decision to build a garage beneath Jessie Square delayed the project further.

But unlike major institutions such as the Fine Arts Museums, which took more than a decade to get the new M.H. de Young Memorial Museum built, the Mexican Museum didn't have a wealthy donor base or the fundraising expertise.

"It's hard to raise money for art, and the community that is our natural ally does not have a lot of money to give," said Mexican Museum Trustee Frank Fernandez, a retired lawyer. "The Latino community worries about working, feeding their families, getting their kids to school."

People in the arts-funding community who strongly support and value the Mexican Museum say the organization lacked sufficient fiscal savvy and stewardship. Staff and board members came and went in recent years.

"The keys to a major project in San Francisco are a compelling vision and strong and consistent leadership. With the Mexican Museum, that appeared not to have been the case," said Kary Schulman, director of the city Grants for the Arts, which stopped funding the museum when it closed its galleries to inventory the collection.

Then the Mercantile Building was bought by the developers, and "that changed the landscape," Peterson said.

He and other trustees would've preferred to press ahead with the Legorreta building, but that no longer seems feasible. They're now committed to opening a scaled-down museum on the same site. They say they would have to raise $5 million to $8 million to do it (the $2.4 million grant from the state is being held for them).

"We're not here to build the Legorreta building. We're here to preserve and show the collection," Fernandez said. "We have downsized to try to get to a situation where the museum that is being built will be sustainable." The board members, Fernandez added, have spent about $50,000 a year out of their own pockets to pay the museum's rent at Fort Mason, insure the collection and pay other bills.

They've met with architect Norton and seen preliminary designs of the Third and Mission tower. If the plans could be worked out, they say, the Mexican Museum would occupy about 45,000 square feet - 20,000 less than originally planned - on three or four floors, and open onto the plaza. Norton had sought the original Mexican Museum commission that went to his more-famous Mexican colleague.

"We're very happy that Enrique is the designer, because he has a sensitivity to what the Mexican Museum's goals and objectives are," Peterson said.

Some donors withdrew their pledges when they saw no progress in the construction of the Legorreta building. But board members say they're confident those donors will come back if a new deal is struck and a construction date is set. One of them is Modesto housing developer Scott Salazar Myers, who withdrew a $1.5 million matching gift he'd pledged for the new building.

"I didn't think the museum was moving ahead on an appropriate timeline," said Myers, who collects 19th and 20th century Mexican art and called the museum "a much-needed cultural resource."

If the museum were to make a deal with the developers, he said, and had "a restored board with a specific business plan that adequately addressed the issues of the facility and the ongoing operating budget, not only would I be interested in getting back in the picture, but I think a lot of people would be as well."

Some people in the arts community have expressed concern about the well-being of the museum's art collection, which includes ancient and colonial-era works, an array of Mexican folk art, including an important collection donated by the Rockefeller family, Jose Clemente Orozco paintings and Diego Rivera drawings. Most of the works are stored at Fort Mason, and others are being kept in an off-site art-storage facility.

"People are wondering what's happening, because the collection is a treasure," said Schulman of Grants for the Arts. "Our hope is that at some point it will be back on public display."

Several years ago, Charles Little, a longtime Mexican Museum contributor, donated hundreds of pieces of Mexican folk art that had filled the Victorian living room of his late partner, Rex May. Little made the gift under the provision that a replica of the living room be installed in the new museum. He agreed to pay for its installation, shipping, maintenance and other costs. The collection was crated and shipped to Fort Mason (it's now in an art-storage facility).

Little said he hasn't heard from anyone at the museum in a year or two and would like to find out what's going on. "It doesn't seem to be a functioning museum entity," he said.

Tere Romo, the museum's longtime curator who'd been working only 40 hours a month, resigned in June, along with registrar Maren Jones, after the board gave a Fort Mason administrator a key to the museum in case of emergency or the need for boiler-room repairs. Providing access to the museum without a staff member present goes against art-museum protocol, said Romo, who now works at UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center.

"I could no longer control access to or guarantee the security of the collection and donor files," Romo wrote in her letter of resignation.

Fernandez, who praised Romo's work, said the collection is safe and secure and there's no cause for concern. He said he's on hand when maintenance personnel go into the boiler room. And he says it's wise, in terms of protecting the art, that Fort Mason's chief operating officer, Al Goncalves , has a key in the event of an emergency.

"He's assured me that he will be present to observe any repair work being done and that nothing happens to the collection," Fernandez said.

At the urging of Mayor Gavin Newsom, Fine Arts Museums Director John Buchanan has met with Mexican Museum board members to consult about fundraising and the care of the collection.

Buchanan, who said he and his staff are providing technical assistance, arranged for the Fine Arts Museums' chief registrar, Therese Chen, to go to Fort Mason to "make sure the current storage and care of the collection is adequate. It seemed OK. We don't think it needs to be moved for safety reasons."

Mexican Museum officials, who are still putting on the Street Art program that sends artists into schools, would like to vacate Fort Mason to save money and store the art elsewhere. The Fine Arts Museums, Buchanan said, don't have the space, but suggested the Mexican Museum use the art-storage facility near the airport that the de Young used while its new building was under construction (the de Young's 2006 exhibition "Chicano Visions" was co-presented by the Mexican Museum).

"We want people to be assured that the collection is safe," Peterson said, "that it's in good hands and that we're working toward a future building that will be sustainable, where it can be made available to the community at large in a very desirable way."

That would please a lot of people, including Connie Wolf, director of the new Contemporary Jewish Museum.

"The Mexican Museum is part of the cultural history and life of the city, and we want it to work," she said.